Block Printing Workshop – Print Your Own Fabric Bag

Spirals is hosting a block printing workshop on Thursday 26 November, from 6pm to 8.30pm, in the Upstairs Gallery at 345 Ecclesall Road. The whole point is to design and print your own fabric bag and take it home as a practical, personal thing you'll actually use. You work with simple printing blocks, shapes and patterns, experimenting with colour, composition and repetition to build original designs, with plenty of room to develop your ideas and layer your arrangements as you go. It's a hands-on session, so you'll be doing the printing yourself rather than just watching.

The workshop is run by Joanna Rucklidge, a Sheffield-based artist, lecturer and researcher. She studied Graphic Design at the Glasgow School of Art and Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art, and she's now pursuing a practice-led PhD on the correlation between environmental climate change and consumer choices around wastepaper. Her work spans relief, gelli, screen, intaglio, block, frottage and collagraph, so she knows her way around a print studio. The evening is suitable for complete beginners and anyone who enjoys making things, and all the bags, materials and equipment are provided, along with tea, coffee and biscuits to keep you going. It's £20, and you'll leave with a bag you printed yourself.